Stan Lai Sheng-chuan's ancestral home in Huichang, Jiangxi province.[Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

In 1996 Lai Sheng-chuan went to Huichang for the first time. At the time it was a difficult place to get to and the trip took him about 30 hours. He had to take an overnight train from Shenzhen to Meizhou, Guangdong province, then hired a car and drove over very poor roads through the mountains.

"I really regret not talking to my father much about his hometown and about his relatives. But he didn't talk that much about the town. For him it was a very difficult topic to broach, being away from home and being unable to go home. It was a very sad situation."

When Lai Sheng-chuan made his homecoming journey, memories flooded back, he says.

He recalls the day in the 1960s when his father had jiucai, or Chinese chive, seeds and planted them in the backyard of their home in Seattle.

"My father went to a great deal of effort to grow this jiucai, and being in Huichang holding a dish with jiucai in it really connected me with him."